Aas a certified social media expert, I speak from experience when I tell you, reader, that the best followers on the entire Internet are Instagram ex-athletes. Forty-year-old men, who have conquered the most demanding profession in the world, who live strangely in their twilight, only walk through a world they had never planned when they were young. Want to see star and future Hall of Fame Joe Johnson repeating seven days Joe Johnson posting beef shots at Hemsworth level? Pau Gasol eating an egg? Do you follow Reggie Miller’s feats on a bike? Well, reader, there is more and more: a brave and new world of great men, who have lived what they were made to believe was their main purpose, only vibrant, looking for good times and congratulating their children on minor successes. The lives we would all live if our wildest dreams came true.
Last Friday night, Celtics Hall of Fame striker Paul Pierce set the gold standard for all retired Instagram athlete content when he, bafflingly, aired live, with the glassy eyes and transparently wasted, playing poker with his guys as a gang of strippers moved. he glanced at the camera and seemed to be having a good time, while a second half-season NBA game was being made on television in the background.
Feel free to consume this sacred document here, but if you can’t run out of time tonight, let me take a second to describe some highlights. Pierce opens the stream by saying, “They’re massaging my neck.” He invites a convertible to the comments, saying he could make money. He seems to be drinking alcohol from a small cup of medication. For two minutes or so, it takes him a while to call the Jewish people on Shabbat, he says “Shabbat is poppin” and he says he would love to “be on Shabbat”. When someone mentions COVID-19, he says he was already vaccinated and then recommends everyone get the shot, which is, frankly, just a responsible message. He then makes an amazing line that says “Stop hating … everyone hates it …”
Also this:
We’ve been to Turkeys before. After more than a year in COVID hell, it’s uplifting to know that there are times that make life worth living, folks.
In a rational world, nothing happens after that, except maybe a significant hike of randos calling Paul Pierce “TURKEY” as he walks down the street. But sadly, Paul shared his poker and stripper-related feats as an employee of ESPN, where he was an analyst in the study of NBA network coverage until yesterday, when he was fired without no ceremony of the world leader to be too cool.
Now, was Paul Pierce a beloved presence on the televisions of this great nation? No, not really. He once said he had a better career than Dwyane Wade, which was quite fun, and seeing him make a mistake was a delightful pleasure, simply because he was such an irritating presence on the NBA court during his career. He may also have confessed or failed to shit his pants halfway through and take off in a wheelchair to hide the embarrassment of the national television audience. And, anyway, all of ESPN’s remote talent on the air goes against the flow of micromanaged post-game shows and produced within an inch of his life.
“But just because he’s not Vin Scully doesn’t mean he has to be fired just for streaming three sheets live in the wind, watching butts.”
But just because he’s not Vin Scully doesn’t mean he has to be fired just for relaying three sheets to the wind, looking at his butts. Who does ESPN protect here, exactly? Everyone involved did A-OK, even taking the time to promote their own Instagram presences to everyone who watched them. Maybe Paul didn’t terribly comply with COVID, but I mean he promoted the vaccine. And look, it’s not like he’s the only NBA character out of his forties to enjoy the company of exotic dancers. James Harden and Lou Williams have just received suspensions and quarantine tasks, which at least seem to me to be enough. Did ESPN worry that all the kids watching Paul Pierce would try to imitate his behavior? I certainly hope not, since, as Draymond Green once pointed out, there are probably no children looking at Paul Pierce.
It’s not like Republican politicians lined up to convict Paul Pierce for his Instagram messes (too busy trying to handle his child sex trafficker). No one is threatening boycotts, protesting outside their home. Paul Pierce has not lost any credibility as a basketball analyst; if anything this springs up his reputation as there is something really unsettling about an NBA player who it is not a party animal. It’s funny shit that happened. Suspend it for a week or ignore it, and it stays in the background; some funny internet shit mentions and shares with internet futures.
Charles Barkley, the monolithic presence of the colossally entertaining post-game from TNT to TNT, got a DUI in 2009, told his arrest officer that “… he would go around the corner and get a blowjob” and went keep their job after some free time, because no one was obsessed with saving face or whatever, ESPN felt they had to do to save their reputation from one of their employees who talked drunk about how been to Turkeys.
Pierce did nothing for eighth as a villain, and yet here he is, out of the cold, because ESPN couldn’t handle anyone being able to enjoy the company of the strippers? What exactly did your quick exit need, when ESPN personalities reliably accused of sexual harassment continue to work online? Was it just that they couldn’t sweep away the Instagram Live footage that didn’t do anything wrong under the rug?
I’m serious: What’s the problem here, exactly? Did they just think it was in bad taste? It’s not about baseball or NFL or Republican politics. Historically no one in or around the NBA has felt compelled to hold a tearful press conference where they apologize to the public because they sometimes like to relax with the strippers. It’s a damn professional basketball and it’s usually on top of that Puritan shit. I can’t even imagine why ESPN didn’t get the grade. Leave Paul Party, cowards.